


Travel by Night

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Feral Alternia, Black Romance, Graphic Violence, M/M, Red Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-13
Updated: 2013-11-12
Packaged: 2018-01-01 08:36:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1042676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Travel by night.</p>
<p>That is the only way to get out alive. The sun will boil you within an instant. Not even indirect sunlight is safe. So you do what your instincts have always told you to do, ever since you were hatched, a grub without his parents. "</p>
<p>Karkat Vantas is an adolescent troll living in this nearly uninhabitable world and things are about to get even more complicated for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Travel by Night

Travel by night.

                That is the only way to get out alive. The sun will boil you within an instant. Not even indirect sunlight is safe. So you do what your instincts have always told you to do, ever since you were hatched, a grub without his parents. You don’t blame them. The cave probably got attacked by a predator and they were unable to carry their entire clutch. Instead, you grew up on your own, not even a lusus to take care of you. It was hard at first, learning to hunt and protect yourself.

                You rarely come across other trolls, and when you do, it never ends well. You are naturally smaller, quieter when you walk around in the forest at night. You do your best to avoid conflict; it attracts other predators. This time, though, it seems that the two trolls you are watching could care less about you, and likely didn’t see you where you were hiding in the thick underbrush. By observing them, they seem to be flirting in the black quadrant, hissing and snarling but neither making the move to outright attack each other. Despite your body yelling for you to get out of their before it all goes to hell, you can’t bring yourself to move. The display of black romance is too entrancing to walk away from. Many trolls didn’t have any filled quadrants, preferring to stick by themselves, you included.

                One of them is a blue blood, and she is making you quite nervous. She obviously is very powerful, but the other one, the yellow blood, doesn’t seem fazed. Your eyes keep gravitating to him. You’ve never seen eyes or horns like that on any troll before. He is taller and more fit than you, and your hemopusher is beginning to beat a little faster than you remembering allowing. _No,_ you think desperately, _not now._ The increase in pulse sent your body into the production of hormones, the scent starting to pick up through the wind. Before either of them could notice, there was rustling in the bushes behind the blue blood.

This was your cue to run. Maybe they would both be too distracted by the fauna that emerged to go after you.

                You ran until you felt comfortable that you were not being followed, moving into a cave that you knew was deep enough that you wouldn’t get scorched by the morning rays in a few more hours. It no longer held your scent, which was a good thing if you didn’t want to be tracked down. There was still a chance that one of them would find you, but you tried not to dwell on this idea for very long, sitting down towards the back of the cave, ignoring the ache of your stomach. You had been heading for the stream to catch your dinner when you had come across them, but now you were doomed to go hungry for another day.

You don’t sleep for a long time, still awake even in the safety of the midday sun.

                You wake with a jolt at the sound of a growl, springing to your feet, teeth bared. There was a tall troll standing at the mouth of the cave, less than twenty feet away from you. You hiss back, ready to attack if necessary. This was the worse place for an encounter; you were trapped in the cave, the troll blocking your only exit. “It’s you,” The troll growls, and the sheer force of it is enough for you to forget about the lisp in his words. He starts approaching, the stance cautious but confident. You know better than to let him force you into the back of the cave and stand your ground.

                Your mind is going into overdrive as you assess the situation. He has the height, weight, and strength advantages while you have speed. Who knows what powers he might have?  That thought makes you finally conclude your course of action. You let him approach until he is about five feet away from you before you start running, moving under his arm in a tight roll that ends in a kneel. You stand back up and bolt out of the cave, every ounce of strength and endurance going into getting away.

                He is following you and the gap between you is closing quickly.  You have to do something to get him off your trail. You are banking on the assumption that he does not know this region as well as you do. You make an abrupt turn into the underbrush, not stopping you movement for a single moment as you go through the forest. Just ahead was the area you were looking for and you had to hope that it was still intact.

 Almost there…

                You fall to the ground, the air getting knocked out of your lungs. The weight on you prevents you from taking the next breath, and you push on him until he gives you just the slightest bit of space. He tackled you, you realize sluggishly. Your chest heaves as you try to catch your breath, energy depleted after such a long distance run.

You were caught.

                “What the fuck,” He pants, looking down at you. You simply hiss at him, too tired to even try to escape from his firm grasp. It’s the yellow blood from yesterday, you note belatedly. “Fuck you,” You spit. He sighs above you, and you wonder what he was planning on doing with you in the first place. You find yourself flipped onto your back and a pressure is placed on your lips.

He’s kissing you?

                You spent a moment completely still before kissing back, unsure of the encounter but allowing it to continue. If you let this moment pass by, you would likely never fill a quadrant. This was your once in a lifetime opportunity, and you weren’t going to give it up. He grip on you loosens a bit and you pull your hands free, running them along his skin to assess his muscles. He was strong and would likely make a great partner in either of the concupiscent quadrants, you decided.

                When he pulls back for air, you place both hands at the middle of his chest and push as hard as you can. It is just enough to move him off of you and give you enough space to scramble free.  “It is going to take a lot more than just a few muscles to court me,” You say as you stand up. He has narrowed eyes that are letting you know that he is definitely up for the challenge. You smirk as you walk away, a little bit more of a sway to your hips than usual.                                                                                                                    

                You travel a long distance that night, masking your scent with a multitude of things, such as berries and leaves. You double back on yourself a few times to create overlapping footprints in the sand of the river.  He had been able to track you on what was most likely scent alone, but now this was a test of his ability. If he was able to pass it then you’ll give him a chance to prove himself as a good, strong matesprit.   You only stop moving at less than an hour before sunrise, moving deep into another cave and settling down for the night.                                                                                                                                                               

                He isn’t there when you wake up, and you take comfort in this fact as you make your way outside to go hunt. Even if this means you will never fill a quadrant, in your mind it is better not to reproduce than to have weak offspring. You start tracking a herd of hoofbeast, staying low to the ground and keeping your eyes keen for any movement on the thicket that might tell you where they are.

                You jolt from your spot at the base of a tree when something drops down next to you. It’s the yellow blood. He raises an eyebrow and crouches down next to you. “I think I passed your test,” He murmurs slowly, giving you the time to process his lisp for the first time. You press your finger to your lips, not even using words to tell him to be quiet as you move forward towards the herd you just spent over an hour tracking down. He follows you and you are surprised that even with his weight and height, he is still able to remain quiet and unseen.

                You target one of the calves of the herd, looking over at him and back at it so that he gets the message. He nods and you move forward to the very edge of the clearing, getting ready to spring. Your knife is unsheathed and you take a deep breath before springing out of the thicket, bolting at the calf. You are lucky this time, being able to trip the calf and push it to the ground. You kill it quickly, because even though this is for survival, you would never want to make something suffer before deaf. You are so entranced in the kill that you do not notice the mother charging at you.

                The yellow blood emerges from the bushes, running forward and charging the mother. His psionics is crackling between his horns as he bares his fangs and assumes a threatening stance. The mother is terrified and runs off to rejoin her herd. You pull your knife out of the calf’s heart, standing up. “We need to get it into the cover before a roarbeast comes to check out the commotion.” You say slowly, watching him with heated cheeks. He nodded, walking over and grabbing the heavy calf, slinging it over his shoulder like it weighed nothing to him. You try not to gap at him and let him lead the way to the cave he had spent the day in.

                You both settle down in front of the cave, sitting in front of a fire that he made. You have to give it to him; he was everything you wanted in a potential matesprit. “You passed my test,” You say as you start skinning the calf so that you can cook some of the meat over the fire. He nods, “I know. Does this mean I get to know your name now?” You look away as your cheeks heat up, realizing you didn’t know his either. “Karkat,” You respond as you put some of the meat over the fire. “Sollux,” He responds, nodding his head to you.  

                Later that night you both lay together in the depths of the cave, your head in his chest as you both whisper things about yourself. There really isn’t much to say, as you are both so young. You are adolescents, nine sweeps old and not even considered to be full adults quite yet. Soon you are both quiet, listening to the woods outside the cave until you fall asleep.                

                The next day you are up earlier than usual, just at the very beginning of the night. The meat you hung at the front of the cave is dried, which is always good because it gives you a chance to keep it around without it going bad and is good for traveling. You were cutting them down from where they were hanging when Sollux walked up behind you, his arms wrapping around your waist. You tense at first but slowly relax into his arms, looking out at the woods below you. You can just faintly make out a moving figure as the wind changes, blowing the scents of the cave to the figure. The moment they pick up on it is visible in their body language: The drop lower to the ground, slinking off in the other direction. Your scent has never had that affect before and you think it is mostly because of Sollux. His psionics leave him with a sort of burnt scent and that on top of his natural scent seems to be enough for any regular troll to reconsider approaching you both.

               You had been planning on moving out of the area immediately but Sollux had other ideas. He says that he doesn’t seem the need to move out of an area if nobody was going to bother them and the food was plentiful. So instead, you spent most of your night weaving dried moss into a cloth-like material, to fix the blood stained loin cloth Sollux was wearing. With his strong presence there, you start thinking that maybe it would be nice to have a matesprit around to protect you.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think of it! I did my very best to proof read this but let me know if you see any grammar and/or spelling errors.


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